This content was prompted by a recent discussion on a website in which several persons said they were not aware of any Clergywomen who had led a growing church. The United Methodist clergy listed below are examples of clergywomen who have demonstrated bothhigh church membership and worship attendance growth in relatively large church settings.

Ordination:
1981Deacon and Probationary Member of the Virginia Conference.
1985Elder and Full Member of the VirginiaConference.

Education: 1979B.S. in Psychology and Sociology from James Madison University
1983 MDiv from Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC.2005 Doctor of Mininistry from Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

We plan to add more clergywomen to this page in the future. The current criteria for inclusion on this page is leading a large church with growth of 150 persons or more in worship attendance or a very large church with growth of 50 or more persons in worship attendance. We also require a tenure of at least 4 years at a church. If you are aware of other clergywomen who have served large churches and who have achieved a distinguished record of both membership and worship attendance growth, please send an e-mail to webmanager@AGloryBe.com.

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Definitions of Terms

Journal YearEach Annual Conference in the United Methodist Church publishes an annual Journal. Journals for U.S. conferences are usually published around September and include statistics for each church from the prior year.

Membership
These are persons who have formally joined a church. They are persons who have been baptized and have publicly declared their faith. Typically, this does not include any young children. The practice in many United Methodist churches is for those who are in sixth grade to participate in confirmation and to make a decision about if they are ready to profess their faith and join the church. The term Professing Members is often used.

Average Annual Worship Attendance
This value is determined by taking the mean of the number of persons at the principal weekly worship services for a year. For most churches this refers to their Sunday morning services. However, some churches include services that occur on Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon. When comparing years, keep in mind that extraneous factors can create variability. These include weather (icy roads, rain, . . .) and calendar issues like January 1 falling on a Sunday.

Profession of Faith
This is the number of persons who joined the church who are not transferring from another church. This includes youth who complete confirmation and decide to join the church. It also includes youth and adults who simply step forward and express that they want to join the church who have never done this before.

PF-WA Index: This index denotes how many persons jointed by profession of faith for every 100 persons in worship each week. (The profession of faith value is divided by average annual worship attendance and multiplied by 100.)

WA-MEM Index: This index denotes ratio between average annual worship attendance and the number of church members (professing members). (The average annual worship attendance value is divided by church membership and reported as a percentage. ex. 100 worship attendance / 300 members = 33.3%)

Click here to view milestones and records
for clergywomen
leading churches.